An applicant writing down his essay.
College application essays are imperative for admissions into American universities and colleges. With the number of applicants applying to colleges and universities in America increasing every year, college essays play a crucial role in giving a student an edge over the other applicants. College essays highlight the applicant's character and personality unlike entrance exams. Write your own essay and don't depend on outsourcing services to unleash your real self.
Length
The essays are usually one to two pages in length or approximately 700 to 1,000 words. Though most of the colleges are not very specific about the essay length or there is no universally-accepted standards or guidelines for essay length, most of the college essays usually fit within the above mentioned range. There are also colleges which would require essays to be just 500 words in length or at times more than 1000 words. The essay length is not a mandate but just an indication and are there to test the student's ability to express concisely and clearly within length confinements.
Essay Purpose
Essays are mandatory as the college gets to know the applicant without meeting you in person. The admission committee does not give particular essay topics or themes to test the knowledge of the candidate in the given subject. It is rather the way the you go about writing on a subject alien to them that keeps the admission committee interested. The accomplishments and experience could be discovered from your curriculum vitae. The main purpose of the essay is to test the your written, expressive and articulation skills. The essay must give the reader an insight into your character and persona.
Formatting and Structure
The essay formatting must be according to the college admission office requirements. If there are no specific instructions given on the same, then the applicants can have their own formatting. The essay must have a title page which must have separated lines, the applicant's name and the title of the paper. The title page should be centered and double-spaced. There would be no instructor or course name as this is not a classwork. The pages should be numbered if there are more than one page and the numbers should be small Roman numerals. The ideal place for the numbers should be the upper right hand corner. The text of the essay must have a 1-inch gap at the top, bottom and sides of the paper. The essays must have a proper introduction, body and conclusion. There could be large number of applicant essays that the admissions committee would need to go through on a particular day and if the essays do not meet these basic requirements, then they would probably be set aside without a single reading.
Essay Content
When given a topic for writing, don't write about your personal achievements and accomplishments. Don't reveal your test scores or any other thing which is not relevant to the essay topic. The content of the essay should be purely based on the theme or the topic given. Deviation from the same would give the admission committee an impression that you have not be diligent enough to follow the basic instructions or are incapable of coming up with relevant content, which would lead to application rejection.
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